Comparison of Honest Trailers and CinemaSins
The Screen Junkies series ''Honest Trailers'' is often compared to the CinemaSins series "'''Everything Wrong With..."' because they both rose to prominence at the same time, are published on the same platform and use similar brands of nerd-focused, nitpicky humor. However, the series are produced by difference companies and there are also very clear stylistic differences between them: in general, CinemaSins reacts and observes, whereas Honest Trailers analyzes and interprets. Additionally, CinemaSins' Everything Wrong With videos are much longer than Honest Trailers, and the tone of CinemaSins' series is consistently harsher than the tone of the often affectionate Honest Trailers series. Nonetheless, there are many other links between the two series: Screen Junkies and CinemaSins have collaborated on some projects and, in 2015, got into a dispute over a car-review video concept. This article discusses these various connections between the two YouTube channels. Rivalry SlashFilm suggested that Screen Junkies and CinemaSins were "usually considered rivals," however, the channels report they were "friendly" with each other in their early days. CinemaSins has consistently had more subscribers than '''Screen Junkies. Collaborations Honest Trailers cameo In 2013, Jeremy Scott of CinemaSins made a cameo appearance in the 'Honest Trailer for Fast Five. Series swap In September 2014, YouTube channels [[Screen Junkies|'Screen Junkies']] and CinemaSins swapped series for one week. The Screen Junkies team wrote and produced an episode of "Everything Wrong With..." 'while '''CinemaSins '''wrote and produced an episode of '"Honest Trailers." 'Both channels used ''The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as their subject matter. Screen Junkies would later go onto produce their own version of ''The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Honest Trailer', while CinemaSins had already produced an earlier version of Everything Wrong With The Amazing Spider-Man 2. ''This means there are '''two versions of the Honest Trailer and two versions of the Everything Wrong With video on YouTube. Comparing these variations on the same concept succinctly illustrates the differences between the two channels. In the Honest Trailer Commentary for 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the writers noted that they did make many similar observations to CinemaSins, but their style of writing is different. * Screen Junkies' Everything Wrong With The Amazing Spider-Man 2 * CinemaSins' Everything Wrong With The Amazing Spider-Man 2 * Screen Junkies' Honest Trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 * CinemaSins' Honest Trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Movie Fights competed on the movie debate show, Movie Fights.]] In May 2015, CinemaSins' Jeremy Scott and Chris Atkinson appeared on an episode of Screen Junkies Movie Fights. They competed as a team against Dan Murrell and Andy Signore of Screen Junkies, in an episode that was promoted as "CinemaSins vs Honest Trailers." The episode has been viewed over 1.2 million times, making it one of the highest-viewed episodes of Movie Fights ever. The episode was hosted by Kristian Harloff of Collider. Prior to the episode's publication, Sequart wrote "it is not a surprise that many fans of Screen Junkies also love the channel CinemaSins" and noted that "the fans have been spamming Screen Junkies videos with cries for Jeremy and Chris to be featured on Movie Fights." The episode included CinemaSins-themed debate topics like "Worst cinema sin" and "Most sinful movie." ''The CinemaSins team scored 5 points, while the Screen Junkies team scored 6 points and were declared the overall winners. '''Jeremy Scott' and Chris Atkinson were both first-time fighters, while Dan Murrell and Andy Signore had both competed in multiple previous episodes. Disputes A brief kerfuffle erupted between the two channels in October 2015, when Screen Junkies launched a new show called "The Review Crew" which featured hosts reviewing movies while driving in cars. CinemaSins' Jeremy Scott initially said the show was a rip-off of a CinemaSins show, but later apologized. Screen Junkies said they had never seen the CinemaSins series. In any case, the Screen Junkies video was strongly disliked, never continued to series, and was deleted long ago. Similarities A new wave of online film criticism Screen Junkies Honest Trailers and CinemaSins' Everything Wrong With series are sometimes linked because of their similar style and approach to film criticism. Screen Rant observed that both series rose to prominence at a similar time (2012) and that they depended on one another for popularity: "''despite being disconnected, in the early days they each elevated the other, creating this new brand of criticism infused with humor and a balance of traditional film theory observations and more nitpicky, nerd-focused ideas; the sort of things that movie fans would notice and mock incessantly yet never allowed to take away from the film." The site argues the two series together formed "a new wave of film criticism that moved beyond academic essays and even traditional reviews (written or video) into a sort of internet-defined form." The Metropolist suggests that neither 'Honest Trailers' and CinemaSins's Everything Wrong With'' evaluate films on their technical merits, but rather according to the feelings they evoke in viewers, and whether they feel "authentic," for example whether Prometheus feels "enough" like Aliens. In the same article, The Metropolist wrote that the rising popularity of series like Honest Trailers and Everything Wrong With reveals that "audiences feel more and more that critics make arguments from a position of in-authenticity.The threshold for what makes a good film isn’t just higher or lower, it’s judged on entirely different criteria. Whether a film is competently made or not, or whatever the intention behind a script is sort of irrelevant to modern audiences." Fanboy and girl nitpicking In the book Christopher Nolan: A Critical Study of the Films, the author suggests both Honest Trailers and CinemaSins' display the same "obsession with nitpicking" and that this "plays into the same objectivity that drives the Internet’s fixation upon Rotten Tomato scores and star ratings.... Plot holes and nitpicks present the illusion of objectivity... Commentators wants to believe that their favorite media is objectively good, that they are correct in their judgement and that everybody who disagrees is wrong – and can be shown to be wrong" (pp113-114). 3 Brothers Films argued both series are examples of "fanboy and girl criticism." The site wrote, "Honest Trailers, Cinema Sins, and the whole monstrous engine that is Red Letter Media are not examples of legitimate criticism, but of hypercritical nitpicking....Discussion of narrative coherence and editing continuity are legitimate topics to discuss about a movie, but they are not the entirety of expert film criticism. In fact, overly focusing on narrative can distract from what a film is truly doing, be if formally or thematically. Fanboy and girl film criticism never considers that a film might deliberately be incoherent or confound conventions." Release schedule Honest Trailers and CinemaSins often release videos roasting the same movie on the same day. Some commenters insist the companies must be coordinating with each other, however, this is untrue. Rather, both companies release videos to coincide with a film's release on digital/Blu-ray or a related film's theatrical release. That is, both companies use trend surfing to maximize views. Many other YouTube channels including How It Should Have Ended (HISHE) also use trend surfing as a business strategy. The Dissolve criticized both Honest Trailers and CinemaSins for making videos based on trend surfing and what will get them the most clicks. The Dissolve argues this choice of subject matter is what results in the prevalence of nitpicking in both series: "The subjects aren’t the most suitable ones, they’re the ones that are the most traffic-friendly. From a business perspective, that’s perfectly understandable... Of course these people should theoretically do whatever they can to grow their viewership and increase their ad revenue. But from a creative perspective, it’s a double standard. If Hollywood filmmakers did something purely for financial reasons—because they knew it would bring the most people to the theater or sell a few more action figures or T-shirts—these shows would make fun of them for it, and rightfully so." Differences Inception Screen Rant noted that the series have very different origins: "Sins is the product of friends chasing a single idea, Screen Junkies is a subsidiary of Defy Media that set out to explicitly build its brand....SJ has since evolved into a massive network with multiple shows, a second news channel (formerly Clevver Movies) and a paid subscription service, as well as fan meetups and SDCC events, Sins remains at its core the same thing; they actually have more subscribers, but that only highlights the different types of success the pair get." Production CinemaSins produces two 20 minute Everything Wrong With videos per week, while Screen Junkies only produces one 5 minute Honest Trailer per week. Everything Wrong With has just two credited writers: Jeremy Scott and Chris Atkinson, who''' have been writing and producing the series from its inception. In contrast, most episodes of Honest Trailers have '''four credited writers, with some episodes having up to six writers. The series creators (Andy Signore and Brett Weiner) have both left the company. Dozens of writers have contributed to Honest Trailers over the years. Everything Wrong With is narrated by writer/producer Jeremy Scott, whereas Honest Trailers is narrated by a professional voice artist, Jon Bailey. Length Another clear difference between the two series is length. Honest Trailers are usually 3-7 minutes in length, with the longest Honest Trailer ever clocking in at 10 minutes. In contrast, many CinemaSins' Everything Wrong With videos exceed 20 minutes. The Playlist argues that CinemaSins "travels down a similar path as Honest Trailers, but to far less amusing effect, and they let the “joke” play out far too long. Where Honest Trailers gets in and out in 4 to 7 minutes maximum, CinemaSins routinely spends 15 to 20 minutes pointing out every little “flaw” in the movie under their microscope." Purpose CinemaSins and Honest Trailers try to accomplish different things. While Honest Trailers series has many purposes, one key purpose has always been as an antidote to over-hyped film marketing. Dread Central explains, "How many times have moviegoers felt misled by a promo that promises boatloads of excitement for a film that turns out to be extremely lackluster?" Gizmodo concurs, noting that Honest Trailers "cut through all the bullshit from every Hollywood blockbuster there is." To achieve this purpose, Honest Trailers frequently refer to film advertising, audience expectations, the director's reputation or past work, and the changing cultural context surrounding a film. In contrast, the purpose of CinemaSins is "to explore the cracks between a film’s expectation of disbelief against an audience’s ability to maintain that suspension" (from The Daily Beast). Suspension of disbelief can be broken by continuity errors, mistakes, inconsistencies, plot holes, or things that strain credulity - which are all things CinemaSins hones in on. As The Daily Beast notes: That audiences willingly engage in some level of disbelief suspension is a cinematic given. The detail required to tell even simple stories quickly spirals out of control if every actionable element is presented by the camera. Given the time compression necessary to tell complex stories in under two hours, many theatergoers are more than happy to indulge a film that ellipses redundant or uninteresting story elements. (Goldstein, R. April 3, 2014, The Witty Genius of YouTube’s CinemaSins: Everything Wrong with Your Favorite Movie, The Daily Beast) Level of analysis While both series employ a nitpicky, nerd-focused approach to film criticism, there is nonetheless a clear differences in their styles of analysis. Screen Rant wrote that CinemaSins videos are primarily about reacting to and making observations about films: "There's no analysis - the best we get is an interesting comment that reduces the Sin count - and so by itself never goes beyond basic, often empty observations." In contrast, Screen Rant points out that Honest Trailers focus more on "satiric critical analysis" and providing "keen insights." In addition, many sites have noted that Screen Junkies use humorous interpretation, for examples, see CinemaBlend's review of the Toy Story Honest Trailer, and The Daily Dot's review of the Jupiter Ascending Honest Trailer. Additionally, Screen Rant has highlighted the awards nominations and critical acclaim that the Honest Trailers series has received, noting that Honest Trailers "has also gained legitimate acclaim - with Honest Trailers even being nominated for an Emmy this year. So while the series rarely fails to bring the laughs, it seems that the Honest Trailers' trademark brand of satire actually has depth underneath all of its humor." For their part, the Honest Trailers writers have never disparaged CinemaSins' approach, rather, they simply propose that the two series are trying to accomplish different things (see the Honest Trailer Commentary for Kong: Skull Island). Mistakes: Accuracy vs. Humor CinemaSins and Honest Trailers differ in how much they value accuracy. CinemaSins is often criticized for making copious mistakes. As The Playlist writes, CinemaSins' approach "often finds them fundamentally misunderstanding the film they’re watching." The Mary Sue concurred with this sentiment, arguing that CinemaSins' videos involve "willful misunderstanding." The CinemaSins writers claim they frequently includes intentionally ignorant criticisms or makes factual errors on purpose in order to add humor. Chris Atkinson explains: "As for us being wrong on sins. At least 50% of the time, we did it on purpose....But a lot of the mistakes we make are intentional. We're playing a character. A know-it-all movie-obsessed nitpicking asshole. If you know anyone like this in life, you know they are sometimes wrong about the things they're angry about." In contrast, Honest Trailers prioritizes accuracy. As Fast Company writes, "As a brand, Honest Trailers is not just about slinging snark for the sake of driving traffic...every criticism that’s lobbed is laboriously debated for its credibility and fairness, so that stings never feel gratuitous; they simply feel true." Honest Trailers writer Joe Starr explained the motto of Honest Trailers is "Honest first, then funny." Tone and Point of View: Jordan Vogt-Roberts and ''Kong: Skull Island'' ''Honest Trailers'''' has never been a series that shits on everything. Like, if a movie’s mediocre, we’ll say it’s mediocre; if it’s good, we’ll say it’s good and have some fun with it; but if it’s bad, we’ll certainly say it’s bad.'' ~ Dan MurrellDan Murrell says this at 33:54 in the Honest Trailer Commentary for Kong: Skull Island The tone of Everything Wrong With series and Honest Trailers series is often very different. Everything Wrong With is, as the name suggests, consistently negative about all films. On the contrary, Honest Trailers, also as the name suggests, strives to be honest.' '''When movies are legitimately good, Honest Trailers openly praises them, often lavishly. As an example, see the 'Honest Trailer for[[Honest Trailer - Die Hard| ''Die Hard.]] In 2017, Jordan Vogt-Roberts, director of Kong: Skull Island, criticized CinemaSins videos and contrasted their approach to that of Honest Trailers. Vogt-Roberts' chief complaints were that CinemaSins' comments are consistently mean-spirited, they lack a clear point of view, and the series should not be considered satire. In Vogt-Roberts' opinion, for a series to qualify as satire, it needs to possess a clear point of view and humorous tone. Vogt-Roberts tweeted: "Try and find me a cinema sins "joke" that's not mean spirited towards the movie or the people who made it. Once again that is not satire." He also tweeted, "Compare them to honest trailers (which like it or not) has a point of view & tone) They are going for jokesyou can say "that's funny" or not." In another tweet, Vogt-Roberts wrote, "Honest Trailers can be satire. They actually write and perform jokes with a point of view with sense of humor unique to that brand" and added "Cinema Sins is not satire no matter how many times you say it out loud. Keep saying it, but it will never become more true." Around the time of his Twitter rant against CinemaSins, Vogt-Roberts appeared in Screen Junkies' 'Honest Trailer for Kong: Skull Island. The Mary Sue wrote that Vogt-Roberts' appearance "demonstrates that Vogt-Roberts’ beef with CinemaSins isn’t just a gut-reaction to any criticism but rather a comment on lazy and bad film criticism that neither inspires nor teaches. He can handle the jokes and burns, but try and do your homework beforehand." In the Honest Trailer Commentary for Kong: Skull Island, the Honest Trailers writers made it very clear that they weren't trying to fan the flames of Vogt-Roberts' quarrel with CinemaSins. Andy Signore said, "We are not here to knock on CinemaSins or do any of that stuff. He Vogt-Roberts seems to want to but that's on him.... I do not want this to be, "This is why CinemaSins sucks," because if you feel that way, that's your own thing, but that's not what we're here to do." Signore also said, "For those of you that think we were calling shade at CinemaSins, we were not." List of references See also * Critical reception of the Honest Trailers series * ''Honest Trailers - Kong: Skull Island'' * Honest Trailers - The Amazing Spider-Man 2 * ''Honest Trailers - Fast Five'' External links * CinemaSins Wikia powered by FANDOM Category:Screen Junkies Category:Honest Trailers Category:CinemaSins Category:Youtubers